Zaremba does a sparkling business and moves to downtown Ipswich

Thursday

From earrings and necklaces to bracelets and rings, Zaremba has thousands of her often casual, but sparkly pieces, from her basement to her attic, a veritable jewelry shop.

That in-home jewelry shop will soon to turn in to an actual jewelry showroom in downtown Ipswich.

In late Novebmer, Luxa Jewelry, Zaremba’s jewelry line, will move into its new home at 4 Elm St. just in time for the holiday season. Zaremba will create the designs and make the jewelry there, as well as have jewelry available for purchase.

Zaremba’s first memory of making jewelry was she was in first grade. Every year Zaremba’s mother had a tradition of taking a group of girls to the Wenham Tea House for Christmas and she would make everyone attending a bead-and-fabric necklace as a gift. She loved going into bead and gem shops as a child and always received beads as gifts.

Zaremba got more serious about jewelry making in 2007 after losing her lifetime collection of jewelry during a cross-country move from Ipswich to San Diego.

“Our moving company swapped my box of jewelry with another customer’s box of books,” Zaremba said. “It was really pretty devastating. It was all of my mother’s jewelry from the 1970s, everything that she had ever given me and every piece I’d ever made. The company couldn’t get it back for us. At the time I couldn’t afford to replace it all, so I decided if I wanted something I would make it myself.”

Zaremba would go to wholesale bead and gem warehouses in San Diego to collect the raw stones that her jewelry is now known for.

“There were beads basically as far as the eye could see,” Zaremba said. “I would buy these huge, long strands of beads and I just started making things for friends and family in my spare time.”

Soon Zaremba began to receive custom jewelry requests from customers all over the United States. When she moved back to Ipswich from San Diego she worked for EBSCO by day and made jewelry by night, often waking up at 5 a.m., working on her lunch break and staying up until 11 p.m. to get her orders done.

Now, more than 10 years after Zaremba replaced her first lost necklace by hand, Luxa Jewelry has turned into a full- fledged business, appearing in retail stores around the country.

Zaremba also brings Luxa Jewelry to more than live 60 markets throughout the year and often brings a staff of three with her to handle the onslaught of customers.

As Luxa Jewelry grew, Zaremba started to realize that her love of making jewelry was becoming more than a home-based business. And, she wanted her basement back. When space at 4 Elm became available over the summer, Zaremba jumped on the opportunity to create a workspace for herself and her staff and to expose her jewelry line to all of Ipswich.

“Up until now I’ve had to purposefully grow the business slowly because I just didn’t have time to do it all,” Zaremba said. “The store had actually been on my “not right now” list of goals, but now I have really high hopes that it will be successful.”

Luxa Jewelry will move into its new Elm Street headquarters on Nov. 9, after the coming election, as soon as the Ipswich Democratic Town Committee vacates the space.

Zaremba hopes to have the showroom set up and ready for Black Friday shopping at the end of November, the day after Thanksgiving.

“We’ll have two weeks to rip up the floor, get it painted and create a beautiful, magical space,” Zaremba said.

Zaremba will host an open house on Black Friday, from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. After that, the showroom will be open on the weekends throughout December and open every day from Dec. 15 to Christmas.

Zaremba will bring one of the popular features of her market display to the showroom: Custom “make your own” wraps where customers will be able to choose their own stones and materials for a custom creation. She will also have a large assortment of jewelry already made and ready for purchase.

Zaremba describes Luxa Jewelry as “bohemian luxurious.”

“Each piece is really one of a kind because the stones are so unique,” Zaremba said. “The stones aren’t perfect. They’re raw. So, the jewelry has a refined component to it with a bohemian flair.”

Zaremba business will include the wholesale market. She would ultimately love to have her products featured at large stores around the country.

“From the beginning I have gotten so much of support,” Zaremba said. “People would let me put my jewelry in their stores, friends and family would spread the word and it has grown a lot just by word of mouth. This is the next step for us.”